Category: Virtuoso: The Tool Cabinet and Workbench of Henry O. Studley

While examining Henry O. Studley’s toolbox, the most impressive moment was when all the tools had been removed and set aside. At that moment, I understood Studley as a joiner, not just a somewhat obsessive tool collector.

The box alone is a remarkable piece of work. Studley’s attention to detail extended to every surface that could be seen or touched. Don Williams – the author of the forthcoming book “Virtuoso” – and I spent a long morning measuring the major components of the chest. And as my hands passed over the woodwork, I felt I finally knew the man.

The visible screws were clocked; the others were not. Layout lines from his gauge and knife were clearly visible on many joints. His dovetails had a dramatic sweep – easily 14°. The inside components of the box were neatly dovetailed at key points.

But most of all, his design – his vision – was consistent. As I was calling out the details of the toolbox’s construction I began to understand Studley’s work patterns. Here are some preliminary insights I have cobbled together.

• The man loved coves. Many of his shopmade tools have tiny small coves at key transition points. All his gauges, for example, have small 1/16” x 1/16” coves on the ends of their beams. His mallet had this same cove in brass on the head. And on and on.

• He liked square ovolos. Many of the transitions on the chest are marked by square ovolos – a curve with two small fillets. This is the transition he would use between major elements of the toolbox.

• Small coves and fillets filled in the gaps. In many areas, Studley used ebony coves with small fillets to fill in the inside corners of his design.

• Surprisingly few ogees. The chest has a fair number of ogee shapes, but many of these are hidden to the casual eye. The cubbyholes for the planes had lots of ogees, but you can’t see these until every tool is removed.

• Gothic, gothic, gothic. Many of the curves and shapes have a gothic flavor. That’s pretty unusual in wood (it’s much more typical in stone). All his chamfers on his gothic arches are perfection. Absolute perfection.

• No plane tracks anywhere. I looked for them.

You can see a slideshow of the details of the toolbox without tools here on Flickr.

After poring over the toolbox with a tape measure and calipers, I am firmly convinced that Studley was not just notable for his collection of tools. He was a craftsman worth remembering, documenting and celebrating – which is exactly what we are doing with “Virtuoso: The Toolbox of Henry O. Studley.”

— Christopher Schwarz

Henry O. Studley was a piano maker and he had a bench that suited his trade. And though we are still in the initial stages of researching his work, some accounts suggest that he was a craftsman who specialized in building prototype organs and pianos for the Poole Piano Co. before the units went into production.

This fact, if it bears out, helps explain some things we saw while poring over the man’s tool chest and workbench for Don Williams’s forthcoming book “Virtuoso: The Toolbox of Henry O. Studley.”

During our visit, I looked over the workbench that sits below Studley’s tool chest. It bears a family resemblance to the one owned by ironmonger Patrick Leach. Leach’s bench was owned by a piano case maker who lived in the same area and time that Studley worked. See the photos here.

So I am presenting the following bullet points on the Studley bench without much comment. I am still processing a lot of the data I wrote down, including 41 pages of typewritten notes, so I don’t have answers. I have just data and a sore bottom. But because data is better that a swift kick to… anywhere, here we go.

Some things I know about H.O. Studley’s workbench.

1. The benchtop is original. The base was made by the current owner and is modeled after the chest. The workmanship on the re-creation is excellent, though it is not aged to look like a vintage original.

2. The benchtop was acquired at the same time the owner acquired the chest.

3. The benchtop is made up primarily of three gorgeous pieces of Cuban mahogany. There are additional mahogany pieces on the ends that cover the end grain.

4. The top is banded by ebony that is let into a rabbet in the benchtop. The ebony is 1/2” x 1/2”.

5. Inside the ebony band, the three mahogany pieces measure 15-15/16” wide, 6-15/16” wide and 5-5/32” wide. The top tapers in its overall width. The tail vise end is 1/4” narrower than the face vise end.

6. The top is 3” thick overall, 30” wide (at its widest) and 78” long.

7. The dogs in the benchtop are 1” x 3/4”. The dogs are ebony. They are 4-1/4” long and are held in the holes with brass spring clips. The dogs are held flush to the top of the benchtop by a small metal clip at the bottom of the dog hole. This clip runs in a stopped groove in each dog. It is… remarkable. Every dog hole has a dog. All of the dogs are spaced on 7-1/2” centers, except for one.

8. The vises were plated with nickel when the owner acquired them, but they were rusting and in need. The collector had them re-plated. There was a lot of effort put into masking original surfaces to preserve the smooth action and tolerances of the vises.

9. The sliding dog on the tail vise is… interesting to me. It is a sliding dovetail that runs in ways that are cut in the vise chop. The tolerances on the machining is remarkable. The dog is pushed up and down easily and holds its position. All dogs should be so obedient.

To see a slideshow of my photos, click here.

Like all things with H.O. Studley, you should take this data with a pinch of salt. There is a lot of misinformation out there. The first Fine Woodworking poster of the chest discussed the “stonemason” tools inside it. Duh.

So I recommend you enjoy the photos and try not to jump to any conclusions until 2013, which is when Williams’s book on Studley is scheduled to be printed.

— Christopher Schwarz

While seeing the completed toolbox of Henry O. Studley is a drool-inducing experience, the real excitement has been taking out each tool, photographing it from every angle and then measuring and documenting everything.

This is where the real questions and answers come from. Which tools did Studley make himself? Was he left-handed? What sort of joinery and moulding profiles did he favor? How did he treat his tools?

It might seem like a brutal slog, but we are having a ton of fun measuring every drill bit, peering into each ferrule and counting every rivet. We get only one chance to do this right the first time.

I have pages and pages of notes and small revelations. My head hurts. But we are going to keep measuring, micing and recording everything we can find.

Anytime I get to examine a piece of work this closely I feel like I know a bit about the builder by the end. This is no exception. This guy was one of the greats.

— Christopher Schwarz

Narayan Nayar’s eyes hop briefly off the road ahead and aim right at me.

“Do you think you are an obsessive person?” he asks.

“Um, not really,” I answer. “Do you think I obsess about things?”

“Absolutely,” he replies, returning his eyes to the road.

At first I thought it was an oddball question that came out of the blue during a long car ride. But in hindsight (or perhaps thanks to three beers at dinner), it now makes sense. Because today Don Williams, Narayan and I are on the trail of one of the most obsessed-over woodworking gems of the 19th and 20th centuries: the tool chest of H.O. Studley.

On Tuesday morning we will begin measuring and photographing the famous chest for a book that Don is working on that is tentatively titled: “Virtuoso: The Toolbox of Henry O. Studley.” After years of work, Don has managed to get access to this much-heralded tool chest.

So after Woodworking in America wrapped up on Sunday afternoon, the three of us took off on a car ride to an undisclosed location to visit the chest and and the workbench of this piano and organ maker who worked for the Poole Piano Co. of Boston and died in 1925.

Even in his lifetime, Studley was well known for his tool chest.

“Mr. Studley had for a great many years been in the employ of the Poole Piano Co., and was accounted a rather unusual mechanic,” according to his obituary in The Music Trade Review. “He was the possessor of a set of tools that was the envy of his co-workers, all of them made by himself by hand and some of them beautifully inlaid with pearl and ivory, and which were always proudly exhibited by Mr. Studley to those who showed an interest.”

The chest is quite obviously the result of one man’s amazing obsession with his tools and the chest that holds them. Every tool is perfectly fitted into a compartment – even the small items in the tiny drawers.

And obsessions with the chest have survived for almost 100 years after Studley’s death. Woodworkers have pored over the poster of the chest published by Fine Woodworking. The episode of “The New Yankee Workshop” that features the chest has been analyzed frame by frame. People have built near-replicas or miniatures of the chest. One company – Shepherd Tool – even tried to produce a commercial kit of the chest. Planemaker Wayne Anderson says a photo of the Studley chest is what first inspired him to become a toolmaker.

And now we are set to photograph and measure every square inch of the thing – a rather obsessive chore – for a book that probably will be 18 months to two years in the making.

In fact I shouldn’t even be telling you this – it’s far too early to discuss a project like this. And I can’t tell you much else – such as where we are or who owns the chest. All that I can tell you is that we are staying in a roadside motel (all the chain hotels are full) and we ate a huge meal of … no, that might give something away.

Stay tuned here. We’ll be giving you more details as we obsess over them.

— Christopher Schwarz